Silk Road: FBI Shuts Down Notorious Black Market Website

FBI arrests the owner of Silk Road

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced Wednesday, that it has shutdown the notorious black market website “Silk Road.”

Officials arrested Ross William Ulbricht, who was the owner of the website. Ulbricht, 29, was arrested on Tuesday and appeared in federal court on Wednesday. He will show up at court on Friday for a bail hearing. He was charged with one count of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Online Ulbricht was known as Dread Pirate Roberts or DPR on Silk Road’s forum. Silk Road was started in 2011 and has been used to sell illegal drugs, teach people how to hack ATM’s, hire hit men and give users access to black market contacts. Users of the website used bitcoin for purchases instead of cash or credit cards. The website had generated more than 9.5 million bitcoin, which comes to about $1.2 billion. The raid resulted in officials confiscating about $3.6 million worth of bitcoin, reports Reuters.

The website used an anonymous network called Tor, which made tracking activities on the website impossible. The FBI caught Ulbricht by tracking him down through a forum website, which had a link to his Gmail account. Ulbricht’s Gmail account revealed his full name to authorities, reports CNN.